Sample clip of my debate with an
atheist on the issue of morality.
Find the whole debate at this link

PZ Myers - Pseudoscienceblogs.com

When I first began delving into the realm of the New Atheist movement I was, so I supposed, confronting the utmost erudition that the movement had to offer. What I found is that the movement is virtually tailor made to appeal to the basest urges within us. Here I am not only referring to the fact that atheism is a consoling delusion but also to the urge to have a laugh at something silly and elbow our buddy in the ribs about it.

The movement produces scientists, supposed skeptics and even ex-preachers who make various authoritarian assertions. Which of their admirers is skeptical enough to be skeptical of them? I do not know, but I wonder.
They appear to constantly make silly remarks about caricatures of "religion" utilizing the same tact as a standup comedian who, as many do, focus almost exclusively on foul language and sex. Why do many comedians do this? Because it is easy, especially if your audience has consumed a number of adult beverages.

Professor PZ Myers has, sadly as so many others have, become a propagandist who seeks to smuggle atheism into science classrooms through the back door and under the guise of science (see here for two examples of this tact and here for Prof. PZ Myers' further elucidation of this point).

Prof. PZ Myers' website "Pharyngula" is part of the "Scienceblogs" network. While the premise of Scienceblogs is to give professors access to the masses and the masses access to the professors with regards to science it has morphed into something quite different, as Scienceblogger Matthew C. Nisbet stated it in referring to:

"…the major perceptual hit that the scienceblogs.com community and brand continues to take because of PZ's antics. The Seed sponsored blog portal is supposed to be a place that attracts new audiences to science, but in fact, it has turned into the Web's leading echo chamber of anti-religious rants and sophomoric discussions of atheism, what the physicist Chad Orzel refers to as the 'screechy monkey' problem. In a recent interview on the podcast Point of Inquiry, host DJ Grothe asked PZ if he worried that scienceblogs.com was becoming better known as 'atheistblogs.com.' It's a question that merits serious consideration, especially in light of recent events."

Scienceblogger Chad Orzel further stated, in the "screechy monkey" post, The Cost of Not Framing:

"If I'm offended, as a liberal apathetic-agnostic professional scientist, how do you think this comes off to people who are actually religious? People who aren't already predisposed to support science? People who are a bit to the right of center politically?" [bold in original]

Prof. PZ Myers' personal immaturity is further compounded, and encouraged, by his Pavlov's monkeys. Just as Prof. Richard Dawkins has apparently given up his position as professor of the public understanding of science to take on the role of professor of the public understanding of atheism, many appear to be doing likewise. One can only wonder for just how many decades these atheist activists have abused and misused their position of privilege and authority to shove atheism down their student's throats in the guise of science.

ScienceBlogs, for its part, expresses their purposes thusly:

"a digital science salon featuring the leading bloggers from a wide array of scientific disciplines. Today, ScienceBlogs is the largest online community dedicated to science. We believe in providing our bloggers with the freedom to exercise their own editorial and creative instincts. We do not edit their work and we do not tell them what to write about…Our role, as we see it, is to create and continue to improve this forum for discussion, and to ensure that the rich dialogue that takes place at ScienceBlogs resonates outside the blogosphere…We believe that science literacy is a pre-condition for progress in the 21st century. At a time when public interest in science is high but public understanding of science remains weak, we have set out to create innovative media ventures to improve science literacy and to advance global science culture."

Perhaps their mistake was in not insisting on scientific content but basically providing a forum for their bloggers to express their personal prejudices.

Lastly, to be fair to the circa 75 bloggers on Scienceblogs.com I wished to state that I am not painting with a broom and referring to the lot of them as being pseudoscientific. Neither, for that matter, am I claiming that PZ Myers is pseudoscientific when he restricts himself to a discussion of organisms and what he can actually observe about them. The problem that atheist activists are causing, even for people who agree with their scientific and worldview concepts, is that they is turning off the very people who would seem to need exposure to science the most and not providing science education per se but worldview activism instead.

This essay is copyrighted by Mariano Grinbank of the website "True Free Thinker" at www.truefreethinker.com.

It may be republished in part or in its entirety on websites, blogs, or any print media for whatever purpose (in agreement or in order to criticize it) only as long as the following conditions are met:

Give credit to Mariano Grinbank of the website "True Free Thinker" and provide the url: www.truefreethinker.com/articles/pz-myers-pseudoscienceblogscom.
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Religious hypocrite.

Robert Denaby (not verified) — Sun, 04/18/2010 - 10:31am

"When I first began delving into the realm of the New Atheist movement I was, so I supposed, confronting the utmost erudition that the movement had to offer. What I found is that the movement is virtually tailor made to appeal to the basest urges within us."

You mean its like religion then.

"Here I am not only referring to the fact that atheism is a consoling delusion but also to the urge to have a laugh at something silly and elbow our buddy in the ribs about it."

So where is your overwhelming evidence that it was your vengeful biblical sky daddy that creted the universe and not Zeus or Ptah?
You might want to actually think about the stupid ideas your faith tries to make you believe. And learn tsome science instead of reading the "bibble" or sucking your priest's cock.

Forgot I'd posted here:If you

Reynold (not verified) — Thu, 11/20/2008 - 4:41am

Forgot I'd posted here:If you do not "trust quotes from creationists/idists until I can either read the source, or find someone who has" you are only half the skeptic that I am-I do not trust any quotes from anyone including the quotes from the websites that you rely upon.It's been experience with creationist quotes and other quotes, that I'm more suspicious of creationist quotes than others. And I wouldn't really talk about the "websites I rely on" as that's an assumption on your part that I don't use those websites as jumping off points for further research. It seems you're just looking for a subtle way to use "ad-hom" against material you can't refute any other way.I am afraid that you are arguing against your own prejudicial presuppositions.You argue that I appealed only to the laws of logic which "can't take physical form, and they are not sentient." Yet, I never claimed to be offering evidence of things that can take physical form and are sentient, I merely referred to the "existence the non-material" (I also appealed to the laws of nature).You did that in an apparent move to make your god seem more likely, since he's "non-material" as well. Otherwise, why'd you bring up the "existence of the non-material"?He's supposed to be sentient, and he's supposed to have taken physical form. That's why I brought up those points.What would you consider acceptable evidence of the supernatural?How's about angels appearing to all of us? What would you accept as evidence that there is no supernatural forces?

Misnomer

Child of God (not verified) — Wed, 11/19/2008 - 9:55pm

Misnomer corrected:Screedmedia - Bigotblogs

Reynold;Good to hear [or

Mariano (not verified) — Sat, 09/20/2008 - 2:11am

Reynold;Good to hear [or read] from you again. If you do not "trust quotes from creationists/idists until I can either read the source, or find someone who has" you are only half the skeptic that I am-I do not trust any quotes from anyone including the quotes from the websites that you rely upon. I am afraid that you are arguing against your own prejudicial presuppositions. You argue that I appealed only to the laws of logic which "can't take physical form, and they are not sentient." Yet, I never claimed to be offering evidence of things that can take physical form and are sentient, I merely referred to the "existence the non-material" (I also appealed to the laws of nature). Again, you prejudicially presume to know what I was referring to by Prof. Richard Dawkins' concoctions. I was not referring to his interview with Ben Stein but to his whole career. Now, I suppose that you were specifically curious as to evidence for the supernatural and perhaps something (or someone?) supernatural that "can take physical form" and or is "sentient." What would you consider acceptable evidence of the supernatural? aDios,Mariano

Good grief. Not the "laws of

Reynold (not verified) — Mon, 09/15/2008 - 3:03pm

Good grief. Not the "laws of logic" again. That has been dealt with rather extensively on philosopher Stephen Law's blog, among other variations of that theme.For one thing, the "laws of logic" are just ideas. They can't take physical form, and they are not sentient. Just because we can imagine things or think of them, or make them up is absolutely no evidence of a sentient, non-physical being.All that means is that we can imagine stuff. That's it. It is not evidence that the stuff we imagine is actually true.Now, to your quotes, I generally don't trust a creationist quote of anyone until I can look at the context.Why?Because of stuff like this.By the way, you do know that Dawkins' "concotion" to "explain away design" was merely his answer to Stein's question about under what circumstances ID would be plausible, right? Dawkins himself does not believe that stuff...he was giving a description of a hypothetical situation.Yeah, I don't trust quotes from creationists/idists until I can either read the source, or find someone who has.

Reynold;Thank you for your

Mariano (not verified) — Wed, 09/03/2008 - 10:39pm

Reynold;Thank you for your comments, question and resources.As to evidence for design being all around us - the ubiquity of design seems to be what caused Prof. Richard Dawkins to write,"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose" (The Blind Watchmaker, p. 1).And Francis Crick to write,"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved" (What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery, p.138).The fact that Prof. Dawkins attempt to explain design away by concocting Victorian Era tales and Crick's appeals to aliens notwithstanding.As for the evidence of the self-evident existence the non-material - I suppose that I would present the laws of logic or the laws of nature as non-material things that exist. You cannot show me any of these laws, we cannot touch them, taste them or hear them but we can infer their existence and, in some cases, we can make observations through which to discern them.aDios,Mariano

marianoThe evidence for

Reynold (not verified) — Mon, 09/01/2008 - 11:33pm

marianoThe evidence for design is all around us and the existence of the non-material is self-evident.Say what? Could you tell us what some of that "evidence" is please?I know that on places like the Panda's Thumb and National Center for Science Education, the argument for "design" has been pretty much laid waste.Just go to the court transcripts for the Dover trial and see how badly the ID people do on the stand.You could even check out the International Conference on Creationism where they admit that they don't even really have a workable theory.

Samuel Skinner;Considering

Mariano (not verified) — Wed, 08/20/2008 - 10:34pm

Samuel Skinner;Considering that atheists constantly claim to rely on science I wonder why their ultimate explanation for anything and everything in the universe is "It just is."I wonder why they are constantly filling the gaps in our knowledge with time, chance, luck, faith, accident, brute fact, et al.I am glad that we can agree on something: science explores the natural and uncovers natural explanations for natural occurrences. And we agree that science, as we know it today, was largely developed by people who believed in God and they developed the scientific method in order to explore and understand how God's natural creation functions. Where atheists go wrong is that they uncover natural causes for natural effects and illogically and unscientifically infer that there is no cause beyond the natural.As to your question, "do you have any EVIDENCE that it is wrong? Any? Cause I have looked and never found any reason to disbelieve materialism."The evidence for design is all around us and the existence of the non-material is self-evident.aDios,Mariano

Darron S;Something just

Mariano (not verified) — Thu, 08/14/2008 - 2:10am

Darron S;Something just occurred to me.Ok, so you talked to my 10 year old cousin and told him that Catholics believed the cookie was the actual flesh of Christ after being blessed by a priest and he just laughed and said, "that's silly."Now, what if you were to tell him something like this:Life comes from non-life.All life on earth came to be when lightning struck a swamp (or some such thing).You are related to chinchillas, sweet potatoes, lobsters, mosquitoes, cucumbers, bacteria, shrimp, lice, chihuahuas, etc., etc., etc.I am tempted to think that he would say, "that's silly." But being 10 years old he has probably had that taught to him in science class, by a science teacher, from a science textbook for about half of a decade now. He probably believes that life came from non-life because of the authoritative setting into which he is placed when he is told such things. And he probably has not the slightest clue, and may not have a clue for decades to come, that there is not the slightest shred of evidence for life originating from non-life.Prof. Lewontin made another interesting remark:"What seems absurd depends on one's prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity 'in deep trouble.' Two's company, but three's a crowd."aDios,Mariano

Like what? Science screws

Samuel Skinner (not verified) — Thu, 08/14/2008 - 1:56am

Like what? Science screws up... when people aren't following the methods of science. Why should we be wary of science itself? It is simply a process.Absolute materialism? I sniff anti-intellectualism in the air. Honestly, using such purple prose is a big indication- absolute is redundant.Seriously do you have any EVIDENCE that it is wrong? Any? Cause I have looked and never found any reason to disbelieve materialism.Childish. That is the best you can do? PZ is wrong because his actions are impolite?Note he wasn't taking a stand against transubstatiation- he was showing how ridiculous the concept of holy was. It happened after another person got death threats for something involving a cracker."Science has nothing to offer atheism/agnosticism, at least not until they atheists/agnostics begin to interpret observations or until they sneak atheism into the public classrooms disguised as science. Besides, since science can only deal with the natural it has nothing to say about the supernatural."This statement is stupid and I say that with all due respect. "science can only deal with the natural it has nothing to say about the supernatural". That is the worst. Science is a method for determining how reality works. Now, if it can't interact anything about the supernatural, that could be because the supernatural doesn't EXIST in reality.You might say it can't cope, but what is the supernatural? The supernatural is things that violate the laws of nature. The laws of nature are things that cannot be violated.So if scientists find something supernatural they change the laws to fit reality. E=mc2 is an example- it used to be matter could only change into matter. Then they found radioactive substances."What if I were to tie my left hand behind my back? I then develop a method that only researches right hands. I then examine my right hand. And then conclude that it is not probable that left hands exist."In this case the hand they are using would be evidence. Please, tell me what their blind spot is. I'd love to hear what is being let through."This is what Prof. Lewontin meant by scientists who "create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying." Science as we know it today was largely developed by people who believed in God and they developed the scientific method in order to explore and understand God's creation."Do you know why scientists accept material explanations? Ask a scientists besides the fools who gave you the quote. Scientists aim for material explanations because their theories must be1) emperical- they can be tested2) falsible- they can be shown to be false3) repeatable- everyone can do the experiments4) Predictive- it must make predictionsOnly material explanations satisfy these requirements.As for "Science as we know it today was largely developed by people who believed in God and they developed the scientific method in order to explore and understand God's creation."I'm pretty sure the Ionians where to first people to do science, followed by the rest of Greece. Regardles, their method was lawed due to their distain for emperical testing-possibly related to their economy based on slavery and their emphasis into philosophy. The only parts that are still good is their philosophy and math.Any way, the scientists who did it during the Scientific Revolution (when science was born better than before) were theists... AND used entirely material explanations for phenomena.In fact the modern method is about the same as theirs. And scientists still use it. When Kepler made his laws of planetary motion, he realized he had no clue WHY it worked that way. So you know what he did? He suggested it was magnetism, but admited he didn't know for certain. He left it up to future scientists for fill out, confident there was a material explanation. That is what Newton did.It is also worth noting that scientists even today speak of their desire to "know creation" or "the mind of God" even if they are atheists- many scientists are motivated by curiosity. It isn't religious or ideological fervor- it is the need to know.It is also worth noting that alot of them tended towards... differant beliefs. Scientists after Darwin were tending towards atheism, but scientists after Newton trended towards deism.

Darron S;Thank you for your

Mariano (not verified) — Thu, 08/14/2008 - 12:38am

Darron S;Thank you for your comment, you made some good points.Yes indeed, we all need to learn how to be skeptics and challenge dogma whether it is religious dogma, scientific dogma, atheist/agnostic dogma, etc.You need to be very careful about being talked into believing anything and everything that science saith. I perceive that you are already well on your way to believing in absolute materialism because you think that this is what science demonstrates.Please consider the words of Professor Richard Lewontin (Harvard University Professor of zoology and biology):"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural_we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door_.scientists transgress the bounds of their own specialty they have no choice but to accept the claims of authority, even though they do not know how solid the grounds of those claims may be. Who am I to believe about quantum physics if not Steven Weinberg, or about the solar system if not Carl Sagan? What worries me is that they may believe what Dawkins and Wilson tell them about evolution_In the end we must trust the experts and they, in turn, exploit their authority as experts and their rhetorical skills to secure our attention and our belief in things that we do not really understand." [Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Times Book Reviews, Volume 44, Number 1 (January 9, 1997)]Also see these essays for some more insight: Omni-Science Protecting the Science Classroom Look Both Ways Two Atheistic Logical Fallacies The Gap FillerI also do not believe in Roman Catholic transubstantiation but I argue against it biblically, logically and historically while PZ Myers mere encourages belligerence and childish behavior (see my blog here).Science has nothing to offer atheism/agnosticism, at least not until they atheists/agnostics begin to interpret observations or until they sneak atheism into the public classrooms disguised as science. Besides, since science can only deal with the natural it has nothing to say about the supernatural.What if I were to tie my left hand behind my back? I then develop a method that only researches right hands. I then examine my right hand. And then conclude that it is not probable that left hands exist.When you ask me how I know, I answer that my method only detects, observes and experiments on right hands. You might say "that's silly" since you know that I am only detecting right hands because my method was only designed to detect right hands and can only deal with right hands. This is what Prof. Lewontin meant by scientists who "create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying." Science as we know it today was largely developed by people who believed in God and they developed the scientific method in order to explore and understand God's creation.aDios,Mariano

Since religion is so

Darron S (not verified) — Wed, 08/13/2008 - 1:46pm

Since religion is so pervasive in our society, and much religious dogma is very anti-science, I see a pro-science forum being "naturally" atheistic/agnostic. I'd be very curious to see the ratio of atheist/agnostic bloggers to believer bloggers on scienceblogs.com.I talked to my 10 year old cousin about the whole PZ Myers cookie incident. He claims to believe in god (raised Jewish), but when I explained to him that the Catholics believed the cookie was the actual flesh of Christ after being blessed by a priest he just laughed and said, "that's silly." I'm glad we have people like PZ out there, publicly pointing out how ridiculous religious beliefs are. Us kids need to learn how to be skeptics and challenge dogma. Cheers!

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PZ Myers - Pseudoscienceblogs.com

Religious hypocrite.

Forgot I'd posted here:If you

Misnomer

Reynold;Good to hear [or

Good grief. Not the "laws of

Reynold;Thank you for your

marianoThe evidence for

Samuel Skinner;Considering

Darron S;Something just

Like what? Science screws

Darron S;Thank you for your

Since religion is so

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